Sibos 2024 opens with call for collaboration and connection

Sibos 2024 kicked off with keynote speeches by Yin Yong, Mayor of Beijing, and Lu Lei, Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China. Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered, also sat down with Swift CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso to discuss trends in global trade, innovation, and the role of Swift in connecting a fragmenting landscape. Go to sibos.com to learn more.

Sibos has a strong history of bringing the global financial community together to collaborate and push the boundaries of our industry forward for the common good. And as these boundaries continue to shift, expand and multiply – with new networks, forms of value, and technologies introducing new opportunities and challenges – a key focus at this year’s conference is keeping the ecosystem connected.

This is the first time that Sibos has been hosted in mainland China, where almost 10,000 delegates from all over the world have come together in Beijing from 21-24 October to connect and share insights.

“Beijing really is a great backdrop for our theme this week, Connecting the future of finance,” said Graeme Munro, Chair of the Swift Board. “Not only because China is the world’s second largest economy and a top trading counterpart for most of the world’s countries. But because Beijing as a city in many ways brings together East and West, past and future, tradition and innovation.”

Bridging differences, creating connections

Swift was founded by the financial community to be an inclusive global infrastructure that serves the needs of a diverse range of institutions from all over the world. And in an era defined by constant change, bridging differences and creating connections has never been more important.

“Seeing everyone today from all corners of the globe is a testament to the strong integrated financial ecosystem that we’ve built over the years that has been an essential foundation for decades of economic growth,” said Javier Pérez-Tasso, Swift CEO, addressing the Sibos audience.

In our interconnected world, cross-border transactions and the ecosystem that moves them play a vital role in supporting businesses, economies and people’s lives. Today, more than 11,500 institutions use the Swift network to move the equivalent of global GDP about every three days, across 40,000 corridors in 150 currencies to four billion accounts.

This reflects “the critical and unique role that Swift plays, connecting the global financial community, solving common challenges and bringing universal benefits so that money moves across borders seamlessly,” said Samantha Emery, Deputy Chair of the Swift Board.

“It’s also why operational excellence remains front and centre for us at the Board,” Emery continued. “Our strategy not only continues to strengthen security and resiliency, but also considers the role of tech, like AI and quantum, for next generation transaction services. Because we know the demands and expectations have gone up from all of you, the community, and your customers.”

Driving change, together

Our common goal – which we share and shape together with the global financial community, regulators, fintechs and others – is to ensure that international transactions are fast, efficient, and secure. And continued collaboration is driving real progress.

“Our vision for instant and frictionless transactions is getting ever closer,” said Pérez-Tasso. “In fact, we can banish some old stereotypes to the history books. 90% of payments on Swift today reach the beneficiary bank within one hour – putting in-flight time well ahead of the G20 targets.”

“And we can go even further as an industry,” he continued. “Having ISO 20022 across the community will drive a major uplift in data quality, which is an essential component for even better end-client experience, stronger compliance, and, of course, innovation.”

“It’s worth remembering that the overall community decided in 2017 to move to ISO 20022 because the benefits can be really powerful at the scale of our network,” Munro told the audience. “Looking at the timeline we collectively set, we are a little over a year away from the migration deadline, and we really need to keep up the momentum.”

Scaling innovation, securely

Innovation is advancing rapidly, not just in Asia but all around the world, with significant progress in technologies and business models reshaping the landscape.

“With a diverse set of networks already playing a role, as consumers and businesses demand more choice, and digital value poised to start coming on stream, Swift has a big role to play in keeping the ecosystem connected,” highlighted Emery. 

“An area we’re very focused on,” added Pérez-Tasso, “is showing that Swift can be used to transfer tokenised value across public and private blockchains, as well as interlinking CBDCs globally, with Swift as a single window creating end-to-end tracking, traceability and trust across transactions – regardless of the forms they take, the networks they use or how they settle.”

This journey is already well underway. Starting next year banks across North America, Europe, and Asia will kick off live trials of digital assets and currency transactions over the Swift network.

A movement of value

To meet the needs of an always-evolving landscape – and the always-on expectations of end-customers – innovation, standardisation, and cooperation all go hand in hand. “It’s innovation with very strong foundations that makes our ecosystem what it has become,” said Pérez-Tasso.

“We all see how Swift is responding to innovation – providing infrastructure, platforms and people which facilitate the movement of goods and services in a way that is reliable and has the security features that we all value,” said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered during the Sibos opening plenary.

But the role of Swift goes even further, and that’s the strength of community in working together to bring increased value to all.

“Sometimes we refer to Swift as a payments platform, which of course it is; sometimes we refer to it as a technology platform, which it is. Maybe we should think about Swift as being a movement,” said Winters, “a very flexible group that can help make sure that the world, which is facing tremendous forces of fragmentation, remains connected.”

“When I talk about the value of the strong integrated financial ecosystem that we’ve built together,” added Pérez-Tasso, “the assets of the Swift platform can be leveraged as an international public good to integrate and connect the future of finance.”